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Quaestiones 1.1-2.15 (Ancient Commentators on Aristotle)

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Of far more interest than any of his "commentaries," Alexander of Aphrodisias' Quaestiones are reminiscent of Aristotle's Problemata, but have a greater claim to authenticity. There is Alexander's identification of the "Active Intellect" with the "Unmoved Mover" wherein "intellect" "intelligising the best of beings" "intelligises" "itself." And there is an interesting, pretty logical inference about how the "Unmoved Mover" has no "function," or telos. (R.W. Sharples even goes so far as to deduce that, for Alexander, "by `God' Aristotle does not mean the supreme Unmoved Mover." ) Moreover, according to Alexander, "the whole world does not need some [being] to exercise providence [over it]." Indeed, "how far he can escape from the charge...that his conception of providence is essentially mechanistic...are issues that the reader will want to consider." A more explicit treatment of determinism than anything available in Aristotle can be found. A distinction between "fate" and "necessity" is made wherein "`that of which the opposite is impossible' is the definition of that which is of necessity," but "it is those things, of which the opposite is impossible, that come to be in accordance with a sequence of causes that will be in accordance with fate." There is a discussion of how the idea of names being "by nature" is disproved because "if names are by nature, the letters in terms of which they are drawn up have to be by nature." Moreover, "identity of names [for different things], and plurality of names [for a single thing], and changes of name are also sufficient to establish this." Some predictable conundrums relating to hylomorphism are cited. One also finds a discussion of universals that any conceptualist would accept. Other points of interest are that the heavens are "ensouled," "it is impossible for soul to be on its own," and that there was confusion over whether what is "actually" something is simultaneously "potentially" that same thing.